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Want to improve your cropland, pastureland or forestland to provide habitat for wildlife, fish and other aquatic species? You must act fast on two conservation programs designed to decrease soil erosion, improve water quality.
Farmers and landowners in Arkansas have until Jan. 15 to submit applications to receive cost-share assistance to implement conservation activities through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program for the 2010 program year. Applicants can sign up at their local USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service field service center.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP):
Individuals and other entities engaged in livestock or crop production are eligible to participate in EQIP. Eligible land includes cropland, pasture, private non-industrial forest land, and other farm and ranch lands.
EQIP in Arkansas is specifically designed to address the resource concerns of water quality issues related to animal manure management and sediment, improved management of irrigation water and reduction in ground water use, reduction of erosion, and improvement of wildlife habitat. All applications will be evaluated for funding based on a state developed procedure to optimize environmental benefits. Applications ranking highest in a funding category will be funded subject to availability.
Most conservation practices in the Arkansas EQIP Payment Schedule are set at 60 percent cost-share with some receiving 75 percent. Some practices have payment caps that cannot be exceeded in a single contract.
According to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s private lands coordinator David Long, EQIP can provide soil and water conservation practices for the farm, along with many wildlife conservation practices that can be included in a producers farm conservation plans. “It can include native grasses and forbs, prescribed burning, forest stand improvement, and tree/shrub planting,” Long says. “In addition, numerous conservation practices target improving water quality in our streams and rivers, benefiting a wide range of fish and aquatic wildlife,” Long added.
Practices such as prescribed grazing, fencing livestock out of streams, riparian forest or herbaceous buffers, filter strips, nutrient management and grassed waterways are available to farm producers who desire to protect and improve the water quality in streams, creeks and other water bodies on their farm, Long explained. “At the 60 to 75 percent cost-share under EQIP, when the landowners are able to implement the conservation practice themselves, out-of-pocket costs may be reduced to only a few dollars or cost them nothing,” he said.
New to the program this year, forest landowners can apply for funding for receiving a forest management plan, which improves future growth of wood fiber along improve wildlife habitat conditions in the forest, Long says. “This is a tremendous opportunity to assist forest landowners in proper forest management and to ensure the future health of their forest along with increase wildlife populations,” Long noted.
Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP)
This program addresses wildlife habitat in riparian areas, wetlands, uplands and cave ecosystems along with elk and quail habitat. Each area will have specific conservation practices eligible for cost-sharing that benefit certain wildlife species. Cost shares also range from 60 to 75 percent, providing a significant incentive to landowners to create, maintain or enhance wildlife habitat on their property.
Applicants will be ranked according to how the wildlife habitat development plan will improve conditions for designated wildlife populations. The plans will be developed by the landowner with assistance from an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission biologist and NRCS conservationist.
A wildlife habitat development plan outlines management practices as well as establishment practices such as planting and seeding. Plans include practices to manage plant succession in fields and forests and may prescribe management techniques such as planting trees, shrubs or native grass to burning, disking or mowing herbaceous stands. Practices also can assist in eradicating wildlife unfriendly vegetation such as fescue or bermudagrass where wildlife is the landowners management objective.
Plans may also include forest management practices such as forest stand improvement by herbicide treatment and harvesting small groups of trees to create the proper density, composition and age of the stand for different wildlife species. On wetland areas, plans outline dates and rates of water drawdown to encourage different species of annual native plants for waterfowl and shorebirds.
The Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program is a voluntary program for people who want to develop and improve wildlife habitat primarily on private land, Long says. “There are several new program requirements under the 2008 Farm Bill that require landowners to provide additional information to the NRCS that has not been required before. Landowners who are unsure what may be required should call their NRCS office before traveling to the office to sign-up. If they bring the proper documents with them the first time they go into the office it could save a lot of frustration and another trip into the office,” he said.
Many of the wildlife conservation practices implemented under the WHIP also have added value for improving water quality, improving habitat for numerous aquatic species when streams or rivers occur are on the property.
For more information on any of these programs, visit http://www.ar.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/ or contact the local USDA/NRCS field service center. Long may be contacted toll-free at (877) 972-5438 for more information on program wildlife opportunities and other private lands programs.